Eh? Whadja Say, Sonny?

I'm getting old.

I never really thought of myself as old. I feel pretty much the same as I did when I was 17 (I had a hard time doing ten push-ups at 17, right?), but recently I had an experience where I realized how old I am becoming.

I don't know how many of you have heard of the "mosquito" ring tone, but just in case I have to explain it to all you old fogeys out there, it's a high-pitched ringtone that teens put on their phone because adults can't hear it. This way, their phone can go off in the middle of class and their teacher won't hear a thing - even though their classmates all know what's going on.

This ringtone, however, is not only benefiting youth. Some companies have played this ringtone over the speakers in their parking lots to keep teenagers from loitering. What goes around, comes around!

But I digress.

I found a hearing test online and decided to play it out loud over my speakers at work (I have very understanding coworkers) just to test everyone's hearing - I was shocked at the results. I played the 8000 Hertz tone just to get their attention - it worked. Then I progressively went up one by one and asked them if they could hear anything with each click. It's all fun and games, however, until someone gets hurt - and my ego was seriously bruised in this incident.

I couldn't hear 160000 Hertz.

I played it a number of times, and each time my coworkers would cringe and put their hands over their ears, while I strained to hear anything at all. I thought they were just kidding at first, but they weren't. I felt older each time I played it, and my coworkers wanted to kill me by the end of it (however not as much as they wanted to kill me when I played a Wesley Willis marathon), but in the end I had to face the cold, hard reality - I'm old.

Now, in my ears' defense, this hearing test was played over my computer speakers in a noisy room, AND when I tried it with my headphones on, I was actually able to hear the 160000 Hertz frequency. . .or maybe that was just the residual ringing in my ears from trying the different tones over and over again - I'd like to think the former.

So, now is your chance to prove you're better than me: Click here to test your hearing and let me know at what frequency you start to feel old.

Happy Hearing!

Hugs and Guns

This story/picture is for all you lovers out there:

Click here to read about Teddy McHuggin (aka Jeff Ondash) and how he broke the world record for most hugs in one day - and how many hugs he actually got (Hint: It's higher than THIS PERSON).

And this one is for the fighters:

Yup, Kayla Kromer (who I've referenced before) made a toilet into ED-209 from Robocop! I'm geeking out again, aren't I? Click here for the details. And click here if have no idea what that thing is supposed to be.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

First and foremost, I should let you know that this post has nothing to do with Spaghetti Westerns. . .or Clint Eastwood. . .or Italians, for that matter. But since this week consisted of sick children and little sleep, I didn't have much time to find an entertaining article/video/picture and expound upon it.

So I present to you three candidates from this week that would have evolved into a full-blown post, if only my home life hadn't been as hectic as my work life.


Here's the Good:


Wired Magazine is doing a contest to see who can disappear the longest. No, David Blaine, this one is not for you, but thanks for reading my blog! This contest is more for the Jason Bourne-type. You can click here for all the details, but if you want the skinny, here it is: they give you $2,500 and some "vital technology" and you see how long you can stay on the run with no one finding you.

Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly. Evan Ratliff, the first person to try a stunt like this made it only 25 days and he was VERY well-prepared. I highly recommend you read his story. It's quite long, yes, but click here to read about Evan's attempt to erase his old life and create a new one.

I considered this section "good" because his story completely blew me away the first time I read it. Now let's move on.


The Bad:


Here's a Japanese commercial for tuna fish. It was made in the late 1970s. See if you can guess what popular late 70's pop culture phenomenon they're subtly alluding to. . .



Think how delicious a tuna melt would be if you cooked it with a lightsaber!


The Ugly:


This section begins with a quiz

Any guesses on what this could be? If you guessed an upside down motorcycle helmet with an exploded homemade sled rocket inside, YOU'RE CORRECT!

A 62-year-old man in Independence Township, Michigan decided it would be a good idea to fill an automobile muffler with gasoline and gunpowder in order to propel himself down a hill on his sled. . .

Huh.

. . .the news story also notes that the man had been drinking prior to attempting this.

Ah. There it is!

He had a friend light the wick on his backpack, and everything seemed to be going fine, until the wick ended and the "rocket" exploded. There was some forward motion, but that was mostly because of the natural forces of gravity pulling him down the incline and all the dropping and rolling he had to do to put the fire out. The rocket didn't do much propelling. Still, though, this has got to be a win for science somehow.

The unnamed mad scientist apparently throws a big sledding party every year, although Undersheriff Mike McCabe noted "he always does outrageous things. . .but he's never blown himself up before." Nor do I think he will again. Having burns over 20% of your body usually knocks some sense into you. You can click here for the full story and a picture of the sled!


So there you go. I hope this sampler platter was satisfying enough for you.

Until next week (or sooner, if something really good comes up)!

My 100th Post - A Celebration in D Flat

Wow! 100 Posts! I really need to get a life. . .or a bigger audience - one of the two.

I started Slice of Fried Gold to share some (slices) of the funny, stupid and interesting articles/videos (fried gold) that I found on the internet. I would then write the articles with a bunch of random embedded links (a la Dave Barry) so that you can enjoy your read on multiple levels. And now, 100 posts later my posts are in AMAZING 3-D and HD with SPECIAL GUEST STARS - all at a special low monthly rate!!!

Ok, so they're pretty much the same. But isn't a little consistency nice sometimes?

So I've decided in honor of my 100th post, I'd like to countdown my top ten favorite Slice of Fried Gold posts. Some of you faithful readers joined late in the game, so this will be a good chance to catch up on earlier reading.

Now, some of the posts on here were really cool finds, but this top ten list was made to honor those articles that required a little more effort and showed off some writing skills. Yes, some of them are doubled up, but that's because it's my blog and it's my prerogative. Deal with it!

Here they are, in a particular order:

10. It's Not Just You and Mein Fuhr-osting! - These were two stories that I had a hard time believing actually happened, but I really enjoyed researching them and writing about them. I hope they make you think twice about the roommates you choose, and what you name your children.

9. Literal TV Titles - This is one of my articles that made it to the IMDb Hit List. It was a way for me to vent about the shows that I didn't like, and even make fun of the ones I did like. It's funny how defensive people get when you mock their favorite TV show - even if they deserve it *COUGH*TYRA*COUGH*.

8. Breaking Down the Term "Chick Flick" and Essential Ingredients of a Romantic Comedy - Yes, these two were a little similar, but these have been ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since I began watching romantic comedies and I was glad to finally get them down on paper. . .er. . .get them down in binary code on an LCD screen.

7. Marathon Throne Time - One of my first articles and probably my favorite story I got to write about hands down! I'm still amazed this actually happened. It's a bit wordy, but I really couldn't use a lot of pictures on this one. :)

6. A Cinematic World Without World War II - I got the idea for this post while having a discussion with my good friend, Jeff Tromphlin. I think it turned out alright, even though I submitted it to IMDb a number of times and they never used it. Feel free to use this one as a conversation starter - chicks dig historians.

5. Send in the Zombies - My very first post about one of my true loves - zombies. Zombies have made their way into a number of posts on here, but this was where it all started. I don't have as many embedded links in this article, but that may be a good thing, because sometimes the site I link to disappears and I have to go back and fix it.

4. Totally Subjective Horror Film List and Totally Subjective Film Lists - As my profile states, I like films. So it's actually kind of hard for me to pick favorites or put them in any order (notice how this "top ten" is actually 14) . I was proud that I could "set in stone" what I consider to be the greatest films and some of my favorite films. Plus, with the horror film list, I like the formatting of "The Plot," "The Pitch," "Content" and "Best Viewed." I thought it added an original flavor.

3. Ho-Ho-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! and Ho-Ho-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGAIN! - I really, really enjoyed doing these two articles. I searched (and laughed my way) through hundreds of different pictures of kids and Santa Claus and picked out these select "few" that I liked best. Yes, those captions came from my own sick mind and yes, I used the actual names of the kids. One of my favorite things about this article was when I had a relative tell me that she had a really bad night and ended up reading the first article and it helped her laugh and feel better. That's what it's all about.

2. The Curse of the Number 3 - This was the first article of mine that made it on the IMDb Hit List. It was quite an honor for me. This was also one of the theories that I have had for a while, and I finally wrote it down and made it official. It also holds the record for most comments. That's because a bunch of people I didn't know read the post and didn't quite agree with me that the number 3 in a movie series title is the sign of a bad movie. I also found that others had posted this article on their site - that was quite flattering.

1. Breaking Silence - Articles about how much I dislike Twilight are almost as abundant on this blog as articles about movies and zombies, but this article is the powerhouse of Anti-Twilighters. This is an informed article that weighs the pros and cons and exposes the stupidity of Stephenie Meyer's books. Also, this post may only be the runner-up in number of comments, but it was created over a year ago and it STILL is getting comments. I don't know how people are still finding it, but I hope it continues - THE MOCKERY MUST CONTINUE!

So there you go. In case you ever get bored at home, at school or at work, this would be a great post to come back to and read an article here and there. Hopefully this introduced some of you to fun new posts that you hadn't seen before, and reminded others (me) of ones that you enjoyed in the past.

Here's to another 100 posts!